Sumo Tournament!

On July 22nd, we made an impromptu trip from our hostel in Kyoto to the Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium in Nagoya. This was the second to last day of the July Sumo Tournament! This meant that the fights were very important and would decide who fought whom in the final matches. Due to the fact that all the tickets for the tournament were sold-out online, we left our hostel around 5:30 AM in order to get tickets from the box office. We went with a young Canadian couple we met in Kyoto. After arriving at the gym we waited in a long line to find out that the box office did not accept credit cards. Thus, we gathered up all the cash and coins in our pockets to pay for our tickets. Then we set out for breakfast. Unfortunately, the gym is located in an area with very little food and were told by people on the street that it would be better to eat in the gym. We were a bit unlucky when it came to food that day because there was very little that the gym offered. Those in the group who ate and ordered meat ended up not eating what they ordered because it was disgusting. Later I purchased rice crackers and peanuts and Rmax bought a Japanese version of Pringles, which we shared.

Around 8:30 AM we entered the empty stadium and snuck down to the floor with an elevated sumo stage. Two-thirds the stadium's seats were staggered rows of cushions and the other third were stacked folding stadium seats (like the kind at baseball stadiums). On the ground floor there were rows of cushions for audience members and then a row of nicer cushions where the judges sat and the sumo wrestler's who were next up to fight sat. All of these rows made a square around the elevated, clay wrestling stage. (Side note: The sumo wrestlers who were more prestigious sat on fancier cushions that someone would have carried out for them.) We were lucky to get on the floor and be able to walk around the sumo stage because moments later guards came out and shooed away other early-explorers.

The first sumo matches began around 10:30, which meant that we had a long time to sit and wait in a florescent lit, in-door stadium. The first few rounds matches were with untitled and less-known sumo wrestlers. There were maybe 20 or 30 matches with different people in each round. They were very fast bouts, lasting 10 to 45 seconds. It was unlike boxing or other sports where maybe you have three bouts before it ends. Here if you knock your opponent to the ground, out of the ring, or on the ground and outside the ring, they are finished for the entire match. This means that those 10 to 45 seconds are their big moment! For some reason this felt unfair to Rmax and me. Even in rock-paper-scissors games as a child it is the best two out of three that wins. It also seemed unfair that the wrestlers were not paired by weight or height. Sometimes there would be a very large man with a smaller-large man (all the wrestlers were large in some way!). When we saw a smaller man beat a larger man we cheered and got excited!

Sumo wrestlers are not just fat men! They train hard and have a lot of muscle under their fat. And some are just muscular! Well actually... some may just be fat... A typical sumo's day consists of waking up and working out, eating, sleeping, working out, eating, and sleeping. After eating a huge hearty stew with meat, beans, tofu, veggies, noodles, etc., the sumo wrestlers sleep so that they do not burn their food-calories.

Around 2:30 the matches started to pick up and the better sumos came out. At this time, the stadium began to get crowded and more interested in the matches. We also saw more sumo techniques. However, with those cool techniques came injuries. More big men fell off the stage - almost onto the judges who were seated below the stage. We saw a man fall and and he must have broken his leg because several men carried him out of the stadium before putting him on an extra-large stretcher. As these bouts became more intense, so did the sumo's introduction. There were parades of all the wrestlers around the stage before matches would begin and they dressed in embroidered aprons. Even the judges and referees began dressing in fancier garb. The more prestigious wrestlers took more time to begin their bout by throwing salt on the floor and by loudly slapping themselves. Sometimes it took 10 minutes of stretching, salt throwing, and slapping before the 10 second bout would even begin.

By 5PM we were all getting wrestles and decided that we would skip the last six bouts of the day to go back to Kyoto. We must have seen at least 100 bouts! Once in Kyoto, Rmax and I gathered up our belongings and left for Osaka to stay at a capsule hostel (yes, that means that I slept in a three-foot by six-foot by three-foot room for a night).

Below are some sumo photos: